I woke up this morning and the baby was so low that I suddenly have a waist again. (Hello ribs: nice to see you again - it’s been a few months!) From behind, I look completely normal. From other sides: I look like I’d strapped a big ball to my belly.
Today is my due date.
I love Obama. What’s not to love?
But I’m torn about Hillary Clinton, I feel for her now as she’s being abandoned. And not because it would have been nice to have a woman president. It would have, of course. It’s just that her healthcare plan was much more solid than Obama’s, and what’s more, I think she would really have made it happen.
I got my economic stimulus check, which was - naturally - for an amount far less than the so-called $600 minimum. Because, you know, I was adjuncting and finishing my Ph.D. and so my income in 2007 was less than the amount they figured as the baseline for the stimulus. Because if you make less money you clearly need less.
Current government = cynical bastards. And what I find especially ironic is that the work I did that they put so little value on? It was teaching their children. Along, of course, with all the other college students I taught in 2007.
In other news: there isn’t any. My baby’s definitely going to be a Gemini girl now - poor A: he’ll have two of us in the house!
I am further dilated: steady progress of a centimeter a week for the past couple of weeks. That puts me at almost 3 cm - said my doctor at this afternoon’s visit. She says there’s a good chance it’s soon now, maybe even within a week.
I feel like it’s soon now but I can’t quite tell if that’s just wishful thinking on my part. Because it’s mighty uncomfortable even just to walk around the house. Basically: I want to drive just to go to the bathroom. And I have to go a lot. I know, I know: really bad for the environment. But my car has such a comfy driver’s seat! Supports a pregnant body in all the right places.
I have all kinds of worries about childbirth, of course. About things that could go wrong, that is. Pain: I figure it passes, it’s got an expiration date. But what if the baby gets an infection or gets hurt somehow? It turns out I’m GBS positive so they’ll have to watch that at the hospital. The chance of an infection is very small, especially given that I’ll be getting antibiotics during labor (standard procedure if you test GBS positive). But the chance isn’t zero. And my high-strung pregnant brain keeps focusing on the not-zero part.
And then there’s my dog, B. How will B. react to the new baby? I’m heavily anthropomorphizing this animal, I’m sure. Or maybe not: I think he really and actually has feelings. He’s quite soulful and we are his family too. He loves us. Like just now, he brought me his smelly fake bone toy, the one he’s been chewing on for the last half hour, and placed it right next to my thigh, waiting for me to pick it up. Is that not a sign of love?
Then there’s the way he starts jumping up and down and barking funny when A. kisses me. Sometimes I get the feeling A. starts kissing me partly to piss off B. and make him jump up and down and bark funny because it’s… well, it’s funny. But B. loves A. too: he gets all listless when A. has to travel. You get the idea, right? So I hope his feelings won’t be too hurt. I’ve read up on introducing newborns to pets, and will try to make B. feel like the baby’s another one of those humans he discovered at the door and admitted into his family.
But we’re not quite at that point yet. Right now, life’s all about waiting for this huge thing, this thing called labor, to start happening for real.
The first theme for this blog, I mean. Somehow it failed to grow on me. I might just have a few days on my hand to play with different themes, and maybe even devise a new banner. Maybe.
UPDATE: still playing with themes. Will continue to do so for some time, I think - surely through the rest of my pregnancy…
On Saturday afternoon my belly moved lower. Saturday morning it was still way up then around 2pm it was not. The first thing I felt was that a particular movement Faustina often makes was suddenly occurring an inch below where I was used to it occurring. Then this morning I noticed something else: I can take actual deep breaths. I almost forgot what that feels like.
I knew I was pregnant just a few days after I conceived. There’s no magic to it: there were only two possible occasions when it could have happened. And I could tell that something had happened: my body felt different. Nothing bad or strange, just… different. There was a fullness to it, something it never had before. I found out for sure a couple of weeks later. I remember feeling everything within a few minutes of looking at the little pee-stick with the extra line: elation, fear, wonder, shock. It was a Friday afternoon, sunny and warm, the air conditioner was running. A bit later I called A. at the studio and told him, and then we set it aside for a while because it was very early in the game, when nothing is certain yet, and one can’t at all count on ending up with a living, breathing baby.
One thing I remember thinking was how finally, after so many years of waiting, I’ll be a member of the club of motherhood. A. said something similar - it is finally happening for him, he doesn’t have to experience it through other people anymore. If all goes well - which is a thought I still append to everything I say, feel, or think about my soon-to-be-born child (who I hope will be, if all goes well, healthy, too).
About two weeks later my mother told us she had cancer. Continue Reading »
I rather loved the dooce interview on the Today show this Wednesday. Not because it was good. It was awful: Kathie Lee Gifford ought to be ashamed of herself. But Heather Armstrong (dooce) handled Kathie Lee’s stupidity SO elegantly. The woman is a gem, and she is also right: what she’s doing is important, it is something that makes public and visible a huge part of women’s lives that has, up to now, mostly happened in the isolation of the home, in secret, without anyone bearing witness. For the most part, mothering has thus far disappeared into silence. And all Kathie Lee could think of saying was, won’t your daughter resent you for blogging about her? Well, I don’t think Kathie Lee is really one to talk… if her children don’t already resent her for just existing, they will surely resent her for ever having asked that question.
This is currently my heart’s desire:
Small, light-weight, Linux (the one I want, that is). I have this fantasy of going to internet cafes with my little bitty baby and my little bitty computer. Reviewed very favorably here; becomes available in the U.S. on May 12. I’m tempted to preorder but maybe I’ll just wait a week or two. The previous version of this same machine (with a smaller screen and less memory) also came in pink… and I kind of wish this one did too. One could get very ironic with a Linux computer in pink.
my tumblog